Our family members have been fans of “Goodnight Moon” (by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd) for many years. Prior to Christmas last year, I learned about David Milgrim’s clever “Goodnight iPad” book, which he wrote under the psyudonum “Ann Droyd.”

There are several other creative parodies of “Goodnight Moon” available in print, online, and on YouTube, so in this post I’ll share links to those I know about in the hope that you’ll share more and be inspired to share some of these with your students. Parodies can be excellent vessels for creativity, critical thinking, and literacy development.

Now it’s time to get political, as many parodies do, and it’s entirely possible you might offend someone if you share one of these last examples. You also might invite them to think critically about our political process and political leaders too, so consider that theoretical benefit as you weigh alternatives.

On a similar but different political note, “Goodnight Bush” is another political parody of Brown and Hurd’s children’s classic which celebrates the end and laments the lasting negative effects of the presidency of George W. Bush. Whether you’re in a red state or a blue state (or not in a colored state at all) you can invite some lively discussion in your social studies class asking whether the portrayal of Dick Cheney as “the old lady whispering hush” is fair, since Noah Dziobecki used a Sith Lord as that character in “Goodnight Forest Moon.”

The final “Goodnight Moon” parody I’ve seen in print and online is “Goodnight Keith Moon.” Keith was the drummer for “The Who.” The references to urination and vomiting in the book make this one fall into the “not appropriate for class” category in school contexts, but it’s still worth checking out if you’re wanting to exhaustively research the “Goodnight Moon parody genre.” A version is also available on YouTube.

What other Goodnight Moon parodies have I left off of this list? Have your students seen many of these? Could you use these to inspire students to write their own parodies? If you do, please let me know via a comment or tweet!